Transmutation

I usually find beauty 

is a surprise 

it isn’t tied 

either to sleek limbs

or intellectualism 

it apparates 

from the communion

of joy and writes itself 

into your features

until when I look 

at you

it is all that I see.

We are all disintegrating 

and as we crumble 

the glow inside starts

to peek through 

hair-thin cracks

in the porcelain of our spirit 

that is the seductive light

that I look for

pouring out of you

the soul fire that makes us

burn for one another.

That is why desire 

is the shapeshifter of emotions

always changing forms 

in the elaborate costume house

where each of us is 

transmuted daily 

into a new self 

discovering

new reasons to delight

in the beds of the familiar lovers

and old reasons to love

new faces.